The Outsiders (9 page)

HAUNTED

Scott Nicholson

“
Do it again, Daddy.” Janie’s coloring book was in her lap,
forgotten.

Darrell
smiled and thumbed open the top on his Zippo lighter. He struck the
flint wheel and the flame burst to life. The dancing fire reflected
in each of Janie’s pupils. Her mouth was open in
fascination.

“
It’s pretty,” she said.

“
And so are you. Now back to your coloring. It’s almost
bedtime.” Darrell flipped the silver metal lid closed, snuffing the
orange flame.

Janie put
the coloring book in front of her and rolled onto her stomach. She
chose a crayon. Gray. Darrell frowned and placed the lighter by the
ashtray.

Rita
tensed in her chair beside him. She reached out with her thin hand
and gripped his arm. “Did you hear that?” she whispered.

Darrell
listened. Janie was humming to herself. The wax of the crayon made
a soft squeak across the paper. The clock on the mantel ticked
once, again, three times, more.

He tried
to hear beyond those normal sounds. His hearing was shot. Too much
Elvis, Rita always said. Too much Elvis would make anybody
deaf.

“
From the kitchen,” she said. “Or outside.”

Janie
heard the same noise that Rita was hearing. She cocked her head,
the crayon poised above the page. She stopped kicking her feet, the
heels of her saddle shoes nearly touching her back.

“
Mice, most likely,” he said, too loudly. He was head of the
household. It was his job to put on a brave face. The expression
fit him like a glass mask.

Why
didn’t the damned dog bark? Dogs were supposed to be sensitive to
spirits from the other side. He put down the newspaper, paper
crackling. Mayor Loeb and Martin Luther King looked out from the
front page. Black and white.

“
Terribly loud mice,” Rita finally answered. Darrell shot her a
glance, then rolled his eyes toward Janie. Rita was usually careful
in front of their daughter. But having those noisy things around
had been stressful.

“
Sounds like it’s coming from the kitchen,” he said with what
he hoped was nonchalance. He pulled his cigar from his mouth. He
rarely smoked, and never inside the house. But they were a comfort,
with their rich sweet smell and tangy taste and the round weight
between his lips.

He laid
the cigar carefully beside his lighter, propping up the damp end on
the ashtray so the dust wouldn’t stick to it. The ashtray was
shaped like a starfish. They’d gotten it on their honeymoon to
Cuba, back when Americans were allowed to visit. He could still see
the map of the island that had been painted on the bottom of the
glass.

Darrell
stood, his recliner groaning in relief. He looked down at the
hollow impression in the woven seat of the chair. Too much food.
Too much food, and too much Elvis.

Can’t go
back. Can’t get younger. Can’t change things. He shook his head at
nothing.

“
Don’t bother, honey. The mice won’t hurt anything.” Rita
chewed at the red end of her index finger.

“
Well, we can’t let them have the run of the house.” It was
their secret code, worked out over the long sleepless night. Janie
didn’t need to know. She was too young to understand. But the
things were beyond anybody’s understanding, no matter what age a
person was.

Darrell
glanced at the big boxy RCA that cast a flickering shadow from one
corner of the room. They usually watched with the sound turned
down. Barney Fife was saying something to Andy, his Adam’s apple
twitching up and down like a turkey’s.

“
Get me a soda while you’re up?” Rita asked. Trying to pretend
everything was normal.

“
Sure. Anything for you, pumpkin?”

Janie
shook her head. He wished she would go back to coloring. Her eyes
were wide now, waiting. He was supposed to protect her from
worries.

She put
the gray crayon back in the box. Fifteen other colors, and she
almost always used gray. Freud would probably have made something
of that. Darrell hoped she would select a blue, even a red,
something vibrant and found in rainbows. His heart tightened as she
chose black.

He walked
past her and turned up the sound on the television. Beginning to
whistle, he headed across the living room. No tune came to mind. He
forced a few in-between notes and the music jumped track somewhere
in his throat. He began again, with ‘I See the Moon.’ Janie’s
favorite.

Where was
that dog? Always underfoot when Darrell went through the house, but
now nowhere to be found. Nothing like this ever happened back in
Illinois. Only in Tennessee.

He was in
the hall when he heard Aunt Bea’s aria from the living room:
“An-deeeee!”

They used to watch
The Outer
Limits
, sometimes
The Twilight Zone
. Never again. They
got too much of that sort of thing in real life. Now it was nothing
but safe, family fare.

Darrell
eased past the closet. His golf clubs were in there, the three-wood
chipped where he’d used it to drive a nail into the kitchen drawer
that was always coming apart. Cobwebs probably were stretched
between the irons. Par for the course, these days.

He
stopped outside the kitchen. A bright rectangle of light spilled
into the hallway. Mice were supposed to be scared of house lights.
Well, maybe mice were, but those things weren’t. Then why did they
only come at night?

There was
a smudge of fingerprints on the doorway casing. Purple. Small.
Grape jelly.

He tried
to yawn, but his breath hitched. He checked the thermostat, even
though it was early autumn and the temperature was fairly constant.
He looked around for another excuse for delay, but found
none.

The
kitchen floor was off-white linoleum, in a Pollock sort of pattern
that disguised scuffs and stains. Mice would find nothing on this
floor.

The
Formica counters were clean, too. Three soiled plates were stacked
in the sink. He didn’t blame Rita for avoiding the chore. No one
wanted to be alone in the kitchen, especially after dinner when the
sun had gone down.

A broom
leaned against the little door that hid the folding-out ironing
board. He wrapped his hands around the smooth wood. Maybe he could
sweep them away, as if they were dust balls.

Darrell
crossed the kitchen slowly, the broom held across his chest. As he
crouched, he felt the bulge of his belly lapping over his belt.
Both he and his crosstown hero were packing on the weight in these
later years.

Where was
that dog? A few black-and-white clumps of hair stuck to the welcome
mat at the back door. That dog shed so much, Darrell wouldn’t be
surprised if it was invisible by now. But the mess was forgivable,
if only the mutt would show up. A good bark would scare those
things away.

He parted
the curtain on the back door. The grass in the yard had gotten tall
and was a little ragged. George next door would be tut-tutting to
his wife. But George was retired, he had nothing on his mind but
lawn fertilizer. There was a joke in there somewhere, but Darrell
wasn’t in the mood to dig it up.

A little
bit of wind played in the laurel hedge, strong enough to make the
seat of Janie’s swing set ease back and forth. Of course it was the
wind. What would those things want with a swing set? The set’s
metal poles were flecked with rust. He didn’t remember that
happening. Gradual changes weren’t as noticeable, he
supposed.

In the
dim light, the world looked colorless. Nothing else stirred. If
they were out there, they were hiding. He almost expected to hear
some corny organ music like they played on the ‘Inner Sanctum’
radio program.

He was
about to drop the curtain and get Rita’s soda, and maybe a beer for
himself, when he saw movement. Two shapes, wispy and pale in the
faded wash of the backyard. Trick of the moonlight. Yeah. Had to
be. They didn’t exist, did they?

He looked
forward to the beer bubbling in his throat. The bitter sweetness
wasn’t as crisp as it used to be back when he was young. Maybe
everything got flatter and less vivid as a person got older. Senses
dulled by time and timelessness.

The big
General Electric was nearly empty. The celery had wilted. Something
on the middle wire shelf had separated into layers. He didn’t dare
open the Tupperware container to see what was inside. A half-dozen
eggs roosted in their scooped-out places. One had a hairline crack,
and a clear jewel of fluid glistened under the fluorescent
light.

He fished
out the drinks and closed the door. There was a hiss as the motor
kicked in and sucked the seals tight. A fluff of lint shot from the
grill at the base of the appliance.

The
drinks chilled his palms. Sensation. He pressed a can to his
forehead. Great way to cure a headache. Too bad he didn’t have
one.

He went
back to the living room. Janie was still coloring, the tip of her
tongue pressed just so against the corner of her mouth. Her eyes
were half-closed, the curl of her lashes making Darrell’s heart
ache. He sat down.

Darrell
gave Rita the soda, then pulled the tab on his beer. The can opened
with a weak, wet sigh. He took a sip. Flat.

“
See any mice?” Rita asked, trying to smile.

“
Not a single Mickey Mouse in the place. Saw a Donald Duck,
though.”

Janie
giggled, her shoulders shaking a little. Her ponytail had fallen
against one cheek. Darrell hated lying. But it wasn’t really a lie,
was it? The lie was so white, it was practically
see-through.

He
settled back in his chair. The newspaper had slipped to the floor
and opened to page seven, where the real news was located. More
stuff on Johnson’s mess in Viet Nam. Right now, he had no interest
in the world beyond. He looked at the television.

Gomer was
doing something stupid, and his proud idiot grin threatened to
split his head in half. Barney was waving his arms in gangly
hysterics. Andy stood there with his hands in his
pockets.

Television was black-and-white, just like life. But in
television, you had ‘problem,’ then ‘problem solved.’ Sprinkle in
some canned laughter along the way. In life, there were no
solutions and not much laughter.

He took
another sip of beer. “You want to visit your folks again this
weekend?”

Rita had
gulped half her soda in her nervousness. “Can we afford
it?”

Could
they afford not to? Every minute away from the house was a good
minute. He wished they could move. He had thought about putting the
house up for sale, but the market was glutted. The racial tension
had even touched the midtown area, and middle-class whites didn’t
want to bring their families to the South. Besides, who would want
to buy a haunted house?

And if
they did manage to sell the house, where would they go? Shoe store
managers weren’t exactly in high demand. And he didn’t want Rita to
work until Janie started school. So they’d just have to ride it out
for another year or so. Seemed like they-d been riding it out
forever.

He put
down the beer and jabbed the cigar in his mouth. “Maybe your folks
are getting tired of us,” he said around the rolled leaf. “How
about a trip to the mountains? We can get a little cabin, maybe out
next to a lake.” He thought of his fishing rod, leaning against his
golf bag somewhere in the lost black of the closet.

“
Out in the middle of nowhere?” Rita’s voice rose a half-step
too high. Janie noticed and stopped scribbling.

“
We could get a boat.”

“
I’ll call around,” Rita said. “Tomorrow.”

Darrell
looked at the bookcase on the wall. He’d been meaning to read so
many of those books. He wasn’t in the mood to spend a few hours
with one. Even though he had all the time in the world.

He picked
up the Zippo and absently thumbed the flame to life. Janie heard
the lid open and looked up. Pretty colors. Orange, yellow, blue. He
doused the flame, thumbed it to life once more, then closed the
lighter and put it back on the table.

Rita
pretended to watch television. Darrell looked from her face to the
screen. The news was on, footage of the sanitation workers’ strike.
The reporter’s voice-over was bassy and bland.

“
Do you think it’s serious?” Rita asked, with double
meaning.

“
A bunch of garbage.” The joke fell flat. Darrell went to the
RCA and turned down the volume. Silence crowded the air.

Janie
stopped coloring, lifted her head and cocked it to one side. “I
heard something.”

Her lips
pursed. A child shouldn’t suffer such worry. He waited for a pang
of guilt to sear his chest. But the guilt was hollow, dead inside
him.

“
I think it’s time a little girl went beddy-bye,” he said. Rita
was standing before he even finished his sentence.

“
Aw, do I have to?” Janie protested half-heartedly.

“
Afraid so, pumpkin.”